Children grow, clothes does not. This is the thought behind Vigga, who offers sustainable high-quality children's clothes on subscription. This business model made Vigga the winner of the Danish Design Award 2017 within the category Outstanding Service.

Vigga is a Danish company that has created a successful business model based on circular consumption habits. It all started with Vigga's CEO Vigga Svensson's first children's clothes brand Katvig. Katvig quickly became one of the world's most sustainable children's clothes brands and Vigga felt to some degree that she had reached her goal. Until she realised she had misunderstood the task. Vigga only provided a half solution to the problems she and her colleagues had observed amongst the customers.

"If you know a bit about textile production and how incredibly resource demanding it is - just a small jumpsuit requires 3000 litres of water - it is clear that there is a lot of untapped resources just laying around passively in people's homes."

Vigga Svensson, CEO of Vigga

"If you know a bit about textile production and how incredibly resource demanding it is - just a small jumpsuit requires 3000 litres of water - it is clear that there is a lot of untapped resources just laying around passively in people's homes. It was also clear that we really hadn't made that much of a difference in the past 10 years, but simpy been part of the system we were trying to change."

Vigga is a subscription-based service that offers sustainable high-quality children's wear and maternity clothes. Both areas are characterised by a very short lifespan, as the sizes quickly become too small. Buying these types of clothes is undiserable from both an economical and environmental perspective. This is why Vigga offers a subscription service, in which the customer ongoingly receives clothes in the right sizes. Vigga offers a circular platform that sends you clothes when you need it and allows you to send the clothes you no longer use back to Vigga. The clothes then undergo a quality check and, if approved, will be sent to the dry cleaner and subsequently shipped to a new recipient.

Vigga

During the first two years of a child's life, there are eight wardrobe changes on average, which was a challenge for Katvig's business model. People wanted to product and the brand, but the products were simply too expensive for the above reasons. Even though Katvig was a recognised brand all over the world, which won prizes and had an influence on the political agenda, the inherent traditional consumption pattern created a paradox in the business model.

A user test made Vigga Svensson aware that Katvig's clients were in possession of over 200 pieces of clothes on average, and only used 25 of these. This insight was the starting point for the company Vigga, which created a completely new way of being sustainable by tapping into a phenomenon that has been known for decades: the reuse and sharing of children's wear.

Based on a solid knowledge of user behaviour, Vigga Svensson realised Vigga had more to offer than just a product: a service.

”We had to create an offer which of course consists of a children's wear brand, but at the same time offers a completely new way of of using our brand."

Vigga Svensson, CEO of Vigga

The development phase turned out to be more difficult than initially assumed, as there were no similar products on the market. The IT structure had to be developed from scratch. This was a challenge as it was not clear from the beginning that Viggo is an IT company as much as it is a children's wear brand. This is due to the fact that there are no similar concepts, and thus no grounds for comparison.

After one year of development, Vigga was launched. Apart from offering high quality children's wear in sustainable materials, Vigga also offers a service which is easier to use, limit resource waste and is much more sustainable than anything a traditional sales-focused company might come up with.

At the Danish Design Award 2017, Vigga won the category Outstanding Service and was a finalist in the category Share Resources.

Vigga's strategy is a great example of how a strategy deeply rooted in user empathy - an understanding of their wishes as well as their concrete needs - can challenge an existing market. What Vigga offers is first and foremost a service that has previously existed in other contexts. Circular business models are not a new concept.

But Vigga has created a platform which has the logistical foundation it takes to grow internationally, which will most likely be the next great step in the development of the company.